SESSA, KARL BORROMÄUS ALEXANDER –
Anti-Jewish author; born at Breslau Dec. 20, 1786; died there Dec. 4, 1813. He studied philosophy and medicine in various universities, graduated as doctor of medicine in Frankfort-on-the-Oder (1807), and was district physician...

SET-OFF –
Effort of a defendant to set up a cause of action against a plaintiff, to the end that the judgment of the court may satisfy the claims of both at the same time; the "compensatio" of Roman law. Although there is no name for it,...

SETH –
Biblical Data: According to Gen. iv. 25, 26 and v. 3-8, Seth was the third son of Adam. He was born after Cain had murdered Abel and when Adam was 130 years old. Seth lived to the age of 912. His eldest son was Enosh, who was...

SEVERUS, JULIUS –
Roman general; consul in 127. Later he held a number of offices in the provinces, and was legate of Dacia, Mœsia, and, according to an inscription ("C. I. L." iii., No. 2830), of Britain. This is confirmed by Dion Cassius, who...

SEVERUS, LUCIUS SEPTIMIUS –
Emperor of Rome from 193 to 211 C.E. At the beginning of his reign he was obliged to war against his rival, Pescennius Niger, who had proclaimed himself Emperor of the East. Which ruler the Jews preferred is unkown, but the...

SEVILLE –
Early History. Capital of the former kingdom of Seville; after Madrid the greatest and most beautiful city of Spain. The community of Seville is one of the oldest and largest in the country. Jews are said to have settled there,...

SEXTUS, JULIUS AFRICANUS –
His Knowledge of Languages. Byzantine chronographer, noted for his surprisingly lucid interpretations of some Biblical questions; flourished in the first half of the third century of the common era. Suidas (s.v. Ἀφρικανός) says...

SFEJ, ABRAHAM –
Rabbinical author; born at Tunis in the early part of the eighteenth century; died at Amsterdam in 1784, while discharging the duties of collecting rabbi for the community of Jerusalem. Sfej left his native city and settled in...

SFORNO –
Italian family, many members of which distinguished themselves as rabbis and scholars. The most prominent of these were the following:Hananeel ben Jacob Sforno: Talmudist; lived at Bologna in the fifteenth and sixteenth...

SHA'AṬNEZ –
Fabric consisting of a mixture of wool and linen, the wearing of which is forbidden by the Mosaic law (Lev. xix. 19; Deut. xxii. 11). The Septuagint rendering is κίβδηλον (something false, adulterated, or drossy). In the Coptic...

SHABABO V11p213001.jpg, JESHUA –
Egyptian scribe and rabbi; lived in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. His teachers were Rabbis Abraham ha-Levi of Cairo and Joseph Nazir, who afterward became his father-in-law (see Joseph Nazir ben Ḥayyim Moses...

SHABBAT –
Treatise in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and both Talmuds; devoted chiefly to rules and regulations for the Sabbath. The Scriptural passages that treat of the Sabbath and of the laws for its observance, thus forming the exegetical...

SHABBAT HA-GADOL –
The Sabbath preceding Passover. The designation "great" for this Sabbath is mentioned by Rashi (11th cent.), and is due to the great miracle of the Sabbath that preceded the Exodus, as related in the Midrash. When God ordered...

SHABBAT GOY –
The Gentile employed in a Jewish household on the Sabbath-day to perform services which are religiously forbidden to Jews on that day. The Shabbat goy's duty is to extinguish the lighted candles or lamps on Friday night, and...

SHABBAT NAḤAMU –
First Sabbath after the Ninth of Ab; so called because the hafṭarah begins with the words: "Naḥamu, naḥamu 'ammi" = "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people" (Isa, xl. 1). The custom of reading certain lessons from the Prophets...

SHABBAT SHUBAH –
The Sabbath between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur; so called from the first words of the hafṭarah read on that day, "Shubah Yisra'el" = "Return, O Israel." It is often called also "Shabbat Teshubah" (= "Sabbath of Repentance"),...

SHABBETHAI BEN ISAAC –
Talmudist and grammarian; born at Lublin, Poland; lived at Przemysl in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; teacher of the Talmudist and cabalist Ḥayyim Bochner. Shabbethai was the author of: "Teshubah," a responsum on the...